PRESS RELEASE:

Transportation a barrier to school choice for urban, low-income parents

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Many low-income parents want to send their children to a better school outside their neighborhood but transportation problems restrict these choices, according to a new study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

Over one-third of parents surveyed for the study actually “considered another school but, facing some transportation challenges, decided to enroll their child in the closest school,” say the authors of Drivers of Choice: Parents, Transportation, and School Choice.

One result: “These parents are significantly less satisfied with their current school,” the study shows. By the same token, parents for whom transportation was not a barrier voiced much greater satisfaction with the schools they chose.

The study surveyed 600 parents in two urban school districts (300 each in Washington, D.C., and Denver, Colorado), in households with incomes up to $75,000 a year. It tracks the choices made by these families in light of policies enabling them to choose a school other than the one closest in their neighborhood:

• More than a quarter (27%) of all parents interviewed said they would have chosen a school outside their neighborhood were it not for transportation problems.
• Parents prevented from choosing due to transportation problems indicated less satisfaction with the school attended by their child than parents who sent children to schools other than their nearby school.
• Most children who attend out-of-neighborhood schools are driven by their parents.
• Families now sending their child to charter or private schools have them travel much farther than children going to neighborhood schools.
• Many low-income parents say they would let their child travel farther to a better school, if they could.

Parents surveyed said they chose their child’s school based on academic quality (37%), location and convenience (26%), the school’s “environment or feeling” (17%), and special programs (10%).

Overall, 61 percent said they were very satisfied with their child’s school. The higher a family’s income, the more transportation options it has and the higher these parents’ satisfaction, whether their child attends a standard public school, public charter school, or private school.

For those parents for whom transportation issues make the schools they want for their children unattainable, the study says better information outreach efforts by school districts would help. Furthermore, the study found few school districts offer innovative transportation programs beyond the standard school bus routes.

The authors suggest new initiatives such as transportation vouchers, ride-sharing programs, and more flexible use of minivans and taxis, which could create practical choices for low-income families who favor a school outside their neighborhood.

Paul Teske, Jody Fitzpatrick, and Tracey O’Brien of the University of Colorado Denver conducted the study as part of the “Doing School Choice Right” project. Dr. Teske is Dean of UCD's School of Public Affairs and directs CRPE Denver, a satellite office of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington Bothell.

Sam Best of the University of Connecticut’s Center for Survey Research Analysis carried out the survey.

Funding for the project was provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley, Annie E. Casey, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations.